


The Universe is Rarely So Lazy

by KtwoNtwo



Series: A Piece of Eight [1]
Category: One Piece, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Character Study, Space Pirates, opscifiandfantasy 2016, slash goggles optional
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-27 09:57:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7613638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KtwoNtwo/pseuds/KtwoNtwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes has a problem.  How can he track down and get rid of the interstellar criminal James Moriarty’s right hand man when he’s stuck in the brig, captured by space pirates?  Marco, captain of the starship Phoenix and First Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates, has a problem.  How can he retrieve encrypted information off a device his crew liberated from a Collective World’s ship and what the heck should he do with the captured spy who was attempting to do the same thing?  A space AU character study involving the meeting of two highly intelligent minds namely Sherlock Holmes and Marco the Phoenix.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Study in Pirates

Sherlock Holmes was bored, B-O-R-E-D, and what was worse was it was his own damn fault. If he hadn’t been so distracted by the information he’d found in the Intelligence Officer’s official communications tablet (which for some strange reason was called a peeda in the common parlance) he would have heard the pirate security forces breaking into said Intelligence Officer’s quarters and been able to hide the peeda, himself or both. It had been a good plan up to that point. Get press-ganged as a messmate under his pseudonym Henry Sigerson on the Collective World’s Spaceship _Endeavor_ and wait for an opportunity to hack into the ship’s Intelligence Officer’s files to get any and all information on his quarry. An attack by the Whitebeard Pirates seemed to be a perfect diversion. Unfortunately those pirates were not after the standard fare: plunder, booty and supplies though the Endeavor was carrying those in fair measure. No, these pirates were also after information. All of which meant that he’d ended up captured and cooling his heels in the brig of the _Moby Dick_ , for the last four days.

Of course his boredom was not a complete waste of time. There was only one thing more boring than being a prisoner and that was guarding a prisoner. Bored guards inevitably gossiped which provided bored prisoners with all sorts of interesting information and deductive fodder. For example, over the last several days Sherlock had learned quite a bit about the Whitebeard Pirates, their command structure, and their fleet starting with the _Moby Dick_ itself. The _Moby Dick_ was not, as commonly assumed, a carrier class starship that patrolled the fringe of Collective World space along a range of star systems known as The Line. Instead it was an artifact of the organizational structure of the Whitebeard Pirates. The Whitebeard Pirates were divided up into divisions. Each division had a number of ships one of which was designated the division flagship. When the division flagships linked up with a frigate class ship named _Queer Dick’s Hatband_ the _Moby Dick_ was formed. Thus, technically Sherlock was only in the _Moby Dick’s_ brig by dint of the fact that the ship he was currently on happened to be linked to the others. Physically he was located on a ship which, when unlinked, was called _Phoenix_ and just happened to be the flagship of the First Division, Whitebeard’s intelligence forces.

Along with overhearing all the boring personal gossip, more than he ever wanted to know about certain sporting events and betting sprinkled with a large number pop cultural references that he didn’t quite understand Sherlock had also learned that some of the information on the peeda he’d been hacking had caused quite a bit of upset in the Whitebeard command ranks. In fact, there had been enough information to send most of the Division commanders scattering in some of the smaller ships to track down various leads and leaving the First Division Commander, one Marco no surname given, in charge of the _Moby Dick_ ship configuration. Sherlock could only presume that one reason was they needed the extra computing power to crack the peeda’s secondary firewalls.

Sherlock was sitting cross legged on the bunk in his cell archiving all the information he had gathered into his mind palace. His brother would be very interested in some of the tidbits he had learned. Bits and pieces about various Whitebeard commanders, crew members and their alleged peccadillos would surely be useful if, no when, his brother would deal with the pirates in the future. Sherlock was mostly finished when he was interrupted by a loud cough from the other side of the force field. He looked up to see the Phoenix’s security officer, a petite female with short curly brown hair, flanked by two beefy crewmembers.

“Sigerson,” she barked at him. “Front and center, hands through the barrier.”

Sherlock stood up and moved to comply. If he hadn’t she would have engaged the cell’s stun field and he would have awoken wherever they wanted him with a killer hangover. No, it was better to be cooperative and keep his wits about him.

It only took him a few moments to move to the force field and place his hands through the outlined opening. As soon as he did so one of the oversized goons slapped a pair of grav-cuffs on his wrists. This might prove to be interesting, he thought, as he pulled his hands back and let the grav-cuffs attract pulling his arms around and behind his back until they clicked together. Only then did the security officer punch in the code that dropped the force field at the front of his cell.

“Come along then,” she ordered indicating that he should precede her out of the brig.

Tactically smart. She wasn’t under estimating him despite the flanking presence of the two burly guards. They proceeded down the ship’s corridors in an awkward sort of procession. One guard slightly ahead followed by Sherlock with the other guard at his shoulder leaving the Security Officer to bring up the rear. As they walked Sherlock managed to get a good look at her and he felt a pang of longing. Her short stature, military bearing and no nonsense orders made him think of a certain doctor who at this point believed him dead. He mentally gave himself a shake. Sentiment would do him no good at this juncture; it might lead him to underestimate her by inexact comparisons. He already knew she was a decent fighter from direct experience. This was no delicate flower. All in all she had shown a high degree of competence in a relatively small package just like…blast.

The lead guard stopped at a door, tapped politely then opened it. Sherlock glanced around orienting himself. Officer country, presumably the ward room, he was about to meet one if not more of the Whitebeard commanders.

The wardroom was relatively bland and did not provide many clues about the personality of the Captain. That in of itself was telling; he had very little attachment to the trappings of power. So, onward to look at the people; there were two present. The first was a petite blue-haired female who glanced up at him briefly before returning her attention to her peeda. He didn’t need the swirled tattoo that covered a good portion of one side of her face to deduce her planet of origin, Kenoria. The tattoo though told him her affinity was water and that she was most likely a psi-talent to boot. Another not so fragile flower; this commander valued talent and ability regardless of the package it arrived in.

Sherlock turned his attention to the commander. He was a square jawed large man with a shock of blond hair. He was wearing a bright purple shirt and navy trousers that were so dark they might have well been black with a yellow garter, complete with tassel, above his left knee. The only reason one could tell the color of the trousers was the contrast with the shiny black boots. You really couldn’t miss the boots. They were new enough not to have any wear patterns and they were currently propped on the table as the commander lounged in his chair. His eyes were half closed, a bored sleepy look resided on his not unhandsome face. Sherlock wasn’t fooled. The tension in the man’s body belied the pose. No the commander was fully alert, aware, and highly intelligent. Dangerous.

“Sigerson as you requested,” the security chief said from behind him.

No honorific, that went with the room’s décor Sherlock noted. This meant that he was looking at Marco, the First Division Commander and Captain of the _Phoenix_.

Marco removed his boots from the table, sat up and lazily looked him over. “Eh Lex?” he said cocking his head. “Isn’t that a bit of overkill?” He waived his hand languidly presumably to encompass the grav-cuffs and the two burly guards.

“No. You didn’t see him fight when we cornered him in the IO’s office hacking into official secret service issued peeda,” Lex replied.

“Henry Sigerson,” the blue-haired girl read off the tablet without looking up. “Unremarkable individual from the Skandia system; press ganged onto the _Endeavor_ three months ago; assigned to the mess. Not happy but no significant disciplinary record. There’s nothing specific Marco but the background is too pat.”

“Eh,” Marco sat forward and leaned his elbows on the table never taking his eyes off Sherlock, “Biometrics Eve?”

Eve? His brain stuttered laboring under Marco’s now intense gaze. Sherlock hadn’t overheard any gossip about an Eve at this level of the command structure. Oh! Yeve, short for Yevette, the science officer and second in command.

“Everything matches but it was too easy to find especially with his lackluster history,” Yeve looked up at him now.

“So...,” Marco drawled “What does a messmate named Sigerson, who in all probability is not really named Sigerson, want with the IO of the _Endeavor’s_ peeda?”

“And that doesn’t even mention the mish-mash fighting style or the hacking,” chimed in Lex.

Sherlock decided to take a chance, “Like you have any right to criticize my style. Yours is even more of a mix with the Judo, ti-chi, Kempo and street tricks from Tashmir in the Persian system. Despite all that you still haven’t learned to throw a proper punch.”

Marco’s eyebrow went up at the litany, “He’s got you pegged Lex,” was his mild comment.

“In partial answer to your question,” Sherlock continued as if Marco hadn’t even spoken, “I’m going to assume that the enemy of the allies of my enemy would at least be somewhat amenable to mutual cooperation.”

“Eh?” Marco relaxed back into his chair and was looking sleepy again, “So who’s the enemy and who’s the ally then?”

Sherlock scoffed, “Your enemy? It’s all over the quadrant that you’ve had someone high up turn on you. Unfortunately it’s worse than that. I only got into the first level of the secure files but what I saw indicates that you still have a leak.”

“What!” Lex squawked from behind him. “Marco, we vetted all of Te…the traitor’s associates.”

“Obviously your problem isn’t a known associate then,” Sherlock remarked. “Either that or you missed someone,” he grinned a sarcastic smile at her.

“I need to go look at that intel,” Lex directed her remark to her commander who simply nodded. She turned on her heel and left.

Sherlock would bet that she had broken into a run a micro-tick after the wardroom door shut.

Marco, in the meantime had turned his attention to Yeve, “How far had they progressed with the tablet when you left?”

“Decrypting the first set of secure files. Near as I can tell there’s another level beyond. It’s a polymorphic code wall that’s going to be a bitch to crack without a passcode.”

“You better go and ride herd on Lex then. There’s no telling what she’ll do if the intel isn’t ready by the time she gets there. You two go with her,” the commander ordered.

Yeve stood and stowed her tablet. She paused halfway to the door. “You sure you don’t want to…” she started at the same time one of the guards shifted to indicate that he’d prefer to stay guarding Sherlock.

“Stop attempting to cosset me Yevette. I didn’t get to be First Division Commander on just my ravishing good looks after all.”

Yeve wrinkled her nose at him, “Who’s good looks? Yours? If you say so sir.”

Sherlock wondered about the sudden appearance of the honorific. It seemed to be some sort of inside joke.

Marco glared at his second for a fraction of a tick but didn’t respond. He only waived a hand and addressed the guard who had shifted, “Go. If there still is a traitor on board you’ll be needed more there than here.”

The guard grunted in agreement and followed Yeve and his fellow guard out of the room closing the door and engaging the lock behind him.

Sherlock watched them go then turned back to Marco. At the same time he finished picking the grav-cuff on his right wrist and snaked his hand out of the circlet. Bringing his hands around he did the same for the left one and dropped the still linked cuffs on the table.

Marco cocked his head in a bird like motion. “Clever. Not many people know that those things have a manual override. Fewer still know how to engage it.” He looked down at the cuffs then cocked his head in the other direction. “So who are you really and what do you want now that you’ve got my undivided attention?”

Sherlock rolled his shoulders which were stiff after the stint in the grav-cuffs then glanced at one of the chairs.

“I’m not stopping you eh?”

Sherlock stalked over and sat, “I wasn’t joking when I offered you my cooperation.”

“But you haven’t yet told me what you want or what you are willing to give up. Without knowing that I don’t know if the deal you are offering is worth my while.”

Sherlock took a good look at the commander. He was confident. It was clear from his demeanor that he felt in complete control of the situation despite the fact that a known dangerous prisoner had slipped his restraints right in front of him. He was being forthright in is interest in a deal but there were these odd tics of behavior that Sherlock couldn’t quite interpret. The side to side head cocking, almost as if Marco wasn’t used to binocular vision, was the most obvious but the more they interacted the more Sherlock noticed other things. Little movements that were not quite human in tone. A human raised by another species perhaps? If so which one? Could be important in that it might affect how the commander would react to what Sherlock needed to tell him.

“As for what I want,” Sherlock was thinking fast about how exactly to phrase things to be as inoffensive as possible. It wouldn’t do to get himself killed before obtaining the final piece of information that would allow him to return home. “I, like you, need the information on that peeda. I’ve been chasing my quarry over several star-systems always being a step or two behind. I most recently learned that he’s taken up with a Collective World’s operative, code named Blackbeard. The events of several months ago made it obvious that Blackbeard was one Marshall Teach most recently of the Whitebeard Pirates.”

Marco winced slightly at that but otherwise didn’t react.

Sherlock took that as incentive to continue. “Given the connections and several other factors I knew I’d need to get into the Collective’s intelligence databases to obtain what I needed. I sized up the potential methods to get in and figured my best chance was to get to one of the shipboard databases. The information might be slightly dated since they only do a general update when they hit the inner world beacons but anything crucial would be squirted via a high beam transmission. An added benefit would be that any errors caused by my hacking would not be noticed until the next general update and I’d be long gone by then.”

Marco nodded slightly then commented, “You were on Nordica. The _Endeavor_ was the first outbound CWS ship through.”

“Your attack was an opportunity I couldn’t afford to miss.”

“So,” Marco leaned forward and put his elbows on the table, “What’cha proposing as a deal?”

“I help you get through that polymorphic code wall, you give me the information in the Collective database on my quarry along with free access to anything you might have on him from your sources then drop me off somewhere with decent space lane connectivity.”

“Hmmm,” Marco was now resting his chin on one hand. “Why do you think you can help us through the polymorphic code?”

Sherlock smirked, “I know who invented it…and I’m smarter than he is.”

Marco raised an eyebrow at that but didn’t say anything.

“and I have a couple of ideas about passcodes that may make hacking it moot.”

There was a long pause as the commander weighed Sherlock’s proposal. Finally he said, “We just might be able to do business depending of course upon just who is your quarry.”

This was going to be tricky Sherlock thought. Too much information and Marco would put things together and figure out exactly who he was and why he was doing what he was doing; not enough and the First Division Commander might just presume that his quest was unjust and refuse to help. It would all depend upon what Marco knew from his own sources which given that he was purportedly the intelligence chief for the Whitebeard pirates could be as extensive as Mycroft’s. Time to take another chance.

“The Tiger Hunter, Sebastian Moran,” was all he said.

The eyebrow went up again. “Interesting. You don’t think The Consultant is going to have anything to say about you taking out his enforcer?”

Marco, it seemed, was a bit behind on his information. Sherlock decided to enlighten him.

“I have it on good authority that the Consultant met a rather messy end after tangling with the Ice Man and his people in New Britannia. That’s why you’ve not been seeing much activity from the criminal element if you track such things. Too much infighting and jockeying for position. Although it is probably why Moran is at least nominally working with Teach.”

“In that case, I think we have a deal Mr. Sigerson.”

Sherlock mentally winced. The way the commander said his alias raised all sorts of alarm bells. He remained physically relaxed but mentally prepared himself to move at a moment’s notice. Sherlock didn’t know if he could take Marco in a fight. He couldn’t even begin to calculate the odds based on the information he had presently and those troubling non-human tics.

“I won’t even bother to register anything but your prisoner status in our records. I think you’ll just be an unnamed source as far as the data stream is concerned. Although I can pass a secure message to the Ice Man if you want. I imagine he is a bit frantic right now.”

Damn, Sherlock thought, this changes quite a few things. He would need to recalculate his approach if Marco knew Mycroft personally. No, he’d need to reinforce his secondary cover as an elite agent regardless, since Marco appeared to be offering an available conduit directly to his brother. Sherlock’s brain whirled with the possibilities only to be brought to a dead stop by Marco’s next words.

“You know your disguise is good enough to fool the large majority of people except for the fact that you really do have your father’s nose.”

Bugger.


	2. The Problem With Prisoners

Marco sat in the wardroom of the _Phoenix_ staring disconsolately at his booted feet thinking. The last few stan-weeks had been interesting to say the least. It had all started with the discovery that Teach had betrayed them. After the inevitable vetting of personnel and housecleaning which resulted from that piece of news, Pops had called an all hands meeting. Given the way bad news traveled in the quadrant it was unsurprising that he set the place at one of the lesser known nexus points out in the interstellar deep-dark far from prying eyes and electronic ears. They had all arrived some seven stan-days ago linking up to form the _Moby Dick_ out of the division flagships and _Queer Dick’s Hatband_. After a couple of days of interminable meetings having the _CWS Endeavor_ drop out of jump practically on top of the _Moby Dick_ had seemed like a gift, especially since what they really needed was current information.

It had been a simple matter to board and secure the _Endeavor_. Practically all the low level crew was conscripts and not at all inclined to resist a well-trained and heavily armed boarding party. In fact most of them gleefully surrendered at the mere promise of being dropped at the nearest independent orbital. The Marines and the Officers were another matter of course. Many of them fought until subdued or killed. Marco was surprised that they’d managed to snag a full quarter of the command staff alive. If he’d been asked prior to the raid he’d have estimated the ratio of killed to captured to be much higher. All in all the attack had gone quite well with one small exception.

As the division responsible for intelligence, Marco’s crew had been tasked with locating and securing the ship’s computer core and databases before they could be wiped. They knew that each CWS ship carried an intelligence officer who had a dedicated information stash, usually on an encrypted peeda, which was separate from the ship’s own files. Sometimes, depending upon the deployment, a Marine unit would also have its own IO carrying its own set of secure files. Marco had sent in a number of small groups in directly behind the boarding parties with instructions to locate and retrieve those peedas while he had led the group that took over the _Endeavor’s_ computers.

No one had found anything with the exception of his security chief, Alexia, who’s group had surprised someone in the IO’s quarters. It turned out to be one of the _Endeavor’s_ messmates named Sigerson who, under the cover of the attack, had broken into the IO’s berth, located the encrypted peeda, and had started hacking same. According to Lex, the guy had put up a decent fight knocking out two of her crewmen before being subdued. Sigerson was now cooling his heels in the _Phoenix’s_ brig while they analyzed the information obtained from the main computer and perused as much of the IO’s peeda as they could immediately access.

The lightly secured information on the peeda when cross referenced with the ship’s own data had been substantial enough to allow the other division commanders and Pop’s himself to take action. Right after the post attack briefing they had taken some of the smaller ships and scattered on information gathering errands of their own. Upon Pop’s instructions they left the _Moby Dick_ configuration intact under Marco’s command to give him the extra computing power he might need to crack the higher security levels on the IO’s peeda. Unfortunately this also happened to leave Marco with the problem of what to do with the attempted information thief, Sigerson.

Marco’s tablet beeped at him. It was a report from the Systems Unit that they’d broken through into the first layer of secured files and were starting to decrypt. They’d estimated it would take at least three stans for the first set of files but that subsequent groups would go faster as they tweaked the algorithms. Marco nodded to himself. That should give enough time for him to start on finding out just who Sigerson was and why he was on the _Endeavor_ in the first place. Decision made he grabbed his tablet and pinged both Lexi and his second Yevette with instructions.

Yeve was, as he had expected, the first to appear. She sauntered in and commandeered a chair.

“What ‘cha got for me?” Marco asked.

“Not much,” Yeve replied. “My team matched the biometrics and pulled the records from Skandia. Guy looks like he was a local yokel in the wrong place at the wrong time and got press ganged by the Collective.”

“Looks?”

“Yeah. The results came up too fast for someone that allegedly doesn’t have a record. Either someone has pulled a scrub job or it’s a plant of some sort.”

“Couriouser and couriouser,” Marco muttered.

“I’m going to do a little digging on my own,” Yeve commented ignoring the mutter, “since we have a tick or four before Lex hauls our boy up from the brig.”

“You do that, eh,” Marco replied absentmindedly.

First impressions were important. Marco had to decide what he wanted to present as an initial front to this Sigerson. If the guy was an agent, as the too perfect background and the situation where they captured him implied, then a strong front would not faze him. No, Marco thought, better to put on the indolent, sleepy look and lull him into revealing his information to the captain who was looked too dumb to pick up on the information. Getting into the persona Marco stretched, yawned then leaned back in his chair kicking his feet up onto the table.

Once they were on the table he proceeded to stare at his hated boots. Marco generally preferred sandals but the boots went so much better with what Izo liked to call his _impress the shit out of people_ outfit. Oh the things he did for espionage.

Yeve looked over at the movement and chuckled. “One of these days,” she said, “someone is going to see through that act and I’m going to laugh my ass off!”

“It’s worked so far. If something ain’t broke don’t try and fix it, eh?”

Yeve went back to her tablet and they sat in companionable silence until there was a tap at the wardroom door.

“Enter,” said Yeve following through with Marco’s play acting.

The cavalcade came through the door; Fred and George bracketing the prisoner with Lex bringing up the rear. Marco noted that he wasn’t the only one wearing a persona. Fred and George, despite being two of the most capable and intelligent security officers Lex had, were playing _big dumb muscle_. It was one of their standard ploys and used often enough that the crew had nicknamed them _Tweedledum_ and _Tweedledee_ whenever they used it.

The prisoner himself was interesting. He was tall and thin with an aquiline nose. His hair was blond and cut ship-short. The blond color was probably not natural Marco noted. His eyebrows were not quite the same shade and there was a hint of darker roots up near his part. He was wearing the simple ship-T and scrub pants issued to all prisoners. Lex had him in grav-cuffs which pulled his arms around behind him and allowed Marco to see that thin did not necessarily mean fragile. There was a lot of lean, wiry muscle on this guys’ frame. Yeah, he could see how this man could put up a decent fight.

Sigerson’s attention was currently on Yeve. He could tell the man was attempting to determine just who and what she was. It didn’t take long. Local yokel my ass, Marco thought. No Skandian farm boy would be able to recognize a Kneorian let alone know the significance of her tattoo. It was obvious that this man knew both. Marco kept the bored look on his face and watched through half closed eye lids.

“Sigerson as you requested,” Lex said from in front of the closed door.

Marco didn’t acknowledge; he just waited, watching. Judging by Sigerson’s body language the lazy act wasn’t really working. Marco removed his boots from the table.

“Eh Lex? Isn’t that,” he waived a hand to indicate Tweedledum, Tweedledee, and the grav-cuffs, “a bit of overkill?”

“No,” Lex replied playing along, “You didn’t see him fight when we cornered him in the IO’s office hacking into the official secret service issued peeda.”

Marco snorted then looked at Yeve.

She’d been watching him from the corner of her eye and took up her cue, “Henry Sigerson. Unremarkable individual from the Skandia system; press ganged onto the _Endeavor_ three months ago; assigned to the mess; not happy but no significant disciplinary record. There’s nothing specific Marco but the background is too pat.”

Marco leaned forward to rest his forearms on the table without taking his eyes off the prisoner, “Eh? Biometrics Yeve?”

The prisoner looked blank for a fraction of a tick. Ah, Marco thought, the guy had picked up at least a modicum of information from the ship-gossip-net. Listening in on the guards most likely. The shortened name had thrown him momentarily. Marco would need to get Lex to give her lecture on gossiping in front of prisoners again.

“Everything matches,” Yeve continued, “but it was too easy to find especially with his lackluster history.”

Time to change tactics a bit, Marco thought. “So…what does a messmate named Sigerson, who in all probability is not really named Siegerson, want with the IO of the _Endeavor’s_ peeda?” he asked somewhat rhetorically to the room at large.

Lex decided to up the pressure of disbelief by adding, “and that doesn’t even mention the mish-mash fighting style or the hacking.”

The prisoner shifted slightly then spoke responding to Lex, “Like you have any right to criticize my style.” His voice was a sonorous baritone that he was clearly used to using to good effect. “Yours is even more of a mix with the Judo, Ti-chi, Kempo and street tricks from Tashmir in the Persian system.” His voice took on a scornful note, “despite all that you still haven’t learned to throw a proper punch!”

Marco raised an eyebrow at that. Not only had he identified the origins of Lex’s fighting style but the tone and manner in which it was delivered sounded familiar.

“He’s got you pegged Lex,” Marco said to cover his surprise.

He needn’t have bothered because Sigerson kept going over Lex’s stuttering sounds, “I’m going to assume that the enemy of the allies of my enemy would at least be somewhat amenable to mutual cooperation.”

Interesting, Marco thought. So he was an agent and he wanted to deal. This could be profitable in terms of information. Marco sat back and plastered the sleepy expression back onto his face.

“So…who’s the enemy and who’s the ally then?” he asked in his most languid tones.

Sigerson scoffed. Nope, he wasn’t buying the lazy act not one bit. Marco could see Yeve out of the corner of his eye trying not to laugh out loud.

“Your enemy?” Sigerson said disdainfully. “It’s all over the quadrant that you’ve had someone high up turn on you. Unfortunately it’s worse than that.” He paused and glanced around to make sure he had at least all three of the command staff’s full attention. “I only got into the first level of the secure files but what I saw indicates that you still have a leak.”

“What!” Lexi’s squawk was not feigned and Marco inwardly winced. This was not going to be good. “Marco, we vetted all of,” shit she was going to blurt out the name they were trying to keep hidden, “the traitor’s associates!”

The prisoner half turned to look at Lex, “Obviously,” he drawled scornfully, “your problem isn’t a known associate then. Either that or you missed someone.” He grinned at her.

The grin and the profile struck a chord of memory. This man looked and sounded a lot like…not for the first time Marco cursed the memory gaps caused by his nature. It was if the fire burned away not only his old form but also the memories attached to it. Luckily Marco also knew that if there was even a faint bit of recognition the entire memory would return sooner or later. In this particular case he hoped it would be the former rather than the latter. In the meantime he needed to get Lex out of the room. It wouldn’t take long for Sigerson to figure out how to push every single one of her buttons and avoid questioning by having her beat him into a pulp. Luckily Lex was focused on what he had said not how he had said it.

“I need to go look at that intel!” she blurted barely waiting for his nod of dismissal before she bolted out the door.

Sigerson kept smirking as he watched her go.

Marco had a hunch and decided to play it. This situation felt like something that would benefit from a one-on-one. Now how to get Yeve and the others out of the room seamlessly?

“How far that they progressed with the tablet when you left?” he asked purely for Sigerson’s benefit.

Yeve kept her face strait. He could tell she didn’t like giving up information within the prisoner’s earshot but she trusted that Marco had a plan.

“Decrypting the first set of secure files,” she responded. “Near as I can tell there’s another level beyond. It’s a polymorphic code wall that’s going to be a bitch to crack without a passcode.”

Nothing he hadn’t already known but the polymorphic code wall was a surprise to Sigerson.

“You better go and ride herd on Lex then. There’s no telling what she’ll do if the intel isn’t ready by the time she gets there.” Given the current situation slandering Lex in front of the prisoner was the way to go. If he thought she was normally a hot head he’d be more likely to discount her competence. “You two go with her,” he ordered Tweedledee and Tweedledumb.

Yevette stood and Fred shifted to indicate that he, at least, thought he should stay. Nope Fred, Marco thought, not this time.

Yeve read both the movement and his twitch and asked, “You sure you don’t want to…”

Marco cut her off, “Stop attempting to cosset me Yevette. I didn’t get to be First Division Commander on just my ravishing good looks after all!”

Yeve wrinkled her nose at him, “Who’s good looks? Yours? If you say so sir!”

Marco had to convert the smile that was threatening to appear on his face at the joke into a glare.  He raised his hand and waived at Fred, “Go, if there is still a traitor on board you’ll be needed more there than here.”

Fred grunted in agreement and followed Yeve out. Marco noted that he engaged the security lock behind him. The wardroom door would now only open with either his palm print or that of one of the security staff. Of course, if the prisoner was as clever as Marco suspected, he could most likely disassemble the locking mechanism and get out that way. Not that Marco would give him the time needed to do so.

Seigerson registered the sound of the lock then turned back to look at Marco. Once again there was that sense of familiarity, especially with the profile. The memory was there just within his mental grasp and then it was gone again. Marco sighed inwardly.

In the meantime the prisoner was shifting his shoulders like he was uncomfortable. He most likely was with the grav-cuffs holding his hands behind his back. Except that Seigerson’s hands were now no longer behind his back. Marco watched as the man, having slipped out of one of the cuffs, brought his hands around and proceeded to jimmy the manual override on the other one with what looked like a slim piece of plastic. He then dropped the still linked cuffs on the table and waited.

Marco cocked his head and wished he was in his other form. The spectrum differences in his vision as well as his other senses often gave him more clues about just what he was dealing with. In addition, sometimes the differences in input helped his memory. Unfortunately that was not going to happen. He wouldn’t give this man that kind of potential leverage under any circumstances. Not that he’d need his other form to take this guy down if it came to a fight.

“Clever,” he commented looking at the cuffs. “Not many people know that those things have a manual override. Fewer still know how to engage it.” Macro cocked his head in the other direction. “So who are you really and what do you want now that you’ve got my undivided attention?”

Siegerson rolled his shoulders again to stretch and glanced pointedly at a chair.

“I’m not stopping you eh?”

Siegerson stalked over to the chair. He hesitated momentarily as if he was unsure whether he wanted to sit or not, then sat. He proceeded to stare at Marco as if cataloging all his features and attempting to figure out his character from his face. Marco had a flash of memory, another face with a similar expression doing the same thing; deducing him and his intentions.

“I wasn’t joking when I offered you my cooperation,” he finally said.

Marco nodded in acknowledgement. “But you haven’t yet told me what you want or what you are willing to give up. Without knowing that I don’t know if the deal you are offering is worth my while.”

Sigerson looked thoughtful then apparently came to a decision and started in, “As for what I want I, like you, need information on that peeda. I’ve been chasing my quarry over several star-systems always being a step or two behind. I most recently learned that he’s taken up with a Collective World’s operative, code named Blackbeard. The events of several months ago made it obvious that Blackbeard was one Marshall Teach most recently of the Whitebeard Pirates.”

So much for keeping the identity of their traitor secret; this guy was indeed an agent and a good one too to have ferreted out that tidbit of information. Now it only remained to determine who he was working for and, Marco reminded himself, chase down that errant memory. He deliberately winced to encourage Sigerson to continue.

“Given the connections and several other factors I knew I’d need to get into the Collective’s intelligence databases to obtain what I needed. I sized up the potential methods to get in and figured my best chance was to get to one of the shipboard databases. The information might be slightly dated since they only do a general update when they hit the inner world beacons but anything crucial would be squirted via high beam transmission. An added benefit would be that any errors caused by my hacking would not be noticed until the next general update and I’d be long gone by then.”

Not bad. Marco nodded in agreement as certain parts of Sigerson’s story suddenly started to make more sense.

“You were on Nordica. The _Endeavor_ was the first outbound CWS ship through,” Marco commented offhandedly. It wouldn’t hurt to show this guy that they did have decent intelligence.

“Your attack was an opportunity that I couldn’t afford to miss.”

Marco put his elbows on the table; time to press a little harder, “So What’cha proposing as a deal?”

“I help you get through that polymorphic code wall, you give me the information in the Collective database on my quarry along with free access to anything you might have on him from your sources then drop me off somewhere with decent space lane connectivity.”

“Hmmmm.” Like hell Marco was going to let this guy troll through the Whitebeard databases regardless of who he was after. Providing the information might be worth it however if, “Why do you think you can help us through the polymorphic code?”

Sigerson smiled, “I know who invented it and I’m smarter than he is.”

Marco suppressed his reaction, only one eyebrow went up. This guy knew Q10? Q10 the best hacker bar none in the quadrant? The guy everyone knew that if he wanted into your data he’d get into your data one way or another even if it was only stored in hardcopy. The only thing that kept data safe from this man was the fact that he tended not to meddle with folks below the planetary system level. Allegedly the man was something of a recluse and here was Sigerson implying he knew him personally?

“and I have a couple of ideas about passwords that may make hacking it moot.”

Marco’s mind was spinning. This guy was clearly more important and well connected than things looked. It didn’t help that every time the man spoke or moved he was getting little flashes of memory. It was frustrating though that those flashes never quite added up to anything usable.

Finally Marco said “We just might be able to do business depending of course upon just who is your quarry.”

It was Sigerson’s turn to think for a moment. Marco could almost see him weighing the pros and cons of cooperation. He also knew that the agent was letting him observe his deliberations. This guy was too good not to be able to hide his reactions if he wanted to. No, this was a ploy of sorts to build trust. The agent wanted Marco to think that giving up his target’s name was significant.

“The Tiger Hunter, Sebastian Moran,” was what Sigerson finally said.

“Interesting,” Marco drawled.

He hadn’t heard that name for a while. Moran was a high level brigand who had been cashiered out of the New Britannia fleet and eventually hooked up with the not quite above board consulting operations of one James Moriarty. Marco’s information indicated that Moran had risen to be the second in command and chief enforcer for same as Moriarty’s business moved more and more into the criminal element. Surprisingly he hadn’t heard much about The Consultant, Moriarty, for over two years. Marco hadn’t been tracking the organization directly since the Consultant tended to avoid working for official governments like the plague but he had just assumed that the man was working in other sectors of the quadrant.

“You don’t think The Consultant is going to have anything to say about you taking out his enforcer?” Marco asked curious as to just what Sigerson knew.

“I have it on good authority that the Consultant met a rather messy end after tangling with the Ice Man and his people in New Britannia almost three stan-years ago.” Sigerson replied with a smug _I know something you don’t know_ look on his face. “That’s why you’ve not been seeing much activity from the criminal element if you track such things. Too much infighting and jockeying for position. Although, it is probably why Moran is at least nominally working with Teach.”

For no particular reason he could fathom Marco suddenly remembered an ancient saying he’d heard once, All roads lead to Rome. In this case, however, all the information seemed to be pointing to New Britannia. Moran was originally from that sector, Morarity’s primary contact point was there, rumor had it that Q10 was based on an orbital around Londinium, and the Ice Man was effectively the head of intelligence as well as diplomacy for the Commonwealth. The individuals he’d come across in his long life from New Britannia had to a person all been wonderfully understated and highly competent. In fact one of the most competent agents he’d ever met had been one Siger…Oh. Oh!

Everything started coalescing, memory and facts, into a glorious whole. Marco almost laughed as he put the disparate pieces together. Q10 only meddled in high level systems most of which belonged to governments and organizations which had interests not aligned with New Britannia, ergo Q10 was working at least in part for the Ice Man. Marco knew through his research that the Ice Man, Mycroft Holmes, was the son of Siger Holmes the highly competent agent that he’d met in a previous incarnation. He also knew that over three years ago Holmes had been involved in an internal matter involving the death of a family member, his brother. That brother, a private detective had committed suicide in disgrace after being accused of setting up the crimes he had allegedly solved. Morarity had been involved somehow in that downfall Marco had not a doubt since Holmes the elder had clearly taken retributive action with extreme prejudice. That left Marco with an agent sitting in his wardroom who looked enough like Siger Holmes to trigger Marco’s memories, who was after Moriarty’s second in command, and who claimed to know Q10 who worked for Mycroft. That didn’t even take into account the now blatantly obvious alias; Siger’s son indeed. There was only one conclusion Marco could draw. The man sitting across from him was the decidedly not dead Sherlock Holmes.

Marco let none of his glee show but decided to see if he could needle his prisoner a bit. “In that case, I think we have a deal Mr. Sigerson,” he drew out the alias.

Sigerson, no Marco thought Sherlock, stiffened slightly. Marco realized just how on edge the man was and decided to reassure him.

“I won’t even bother to register anything but your prisoner status in our records. I think you’ll just be an unnamed source as far as the data stream is concerned.”

Marco had a stray thought. If Mycroft wasn’t in on the ruse then he might wish to know that his brother was still alive. Then he had another thought. If Mycroft was in on it he still might be appreciative since his brother had been off the radar for at least three months while on the _Endeavor_. Either way…

“Although I can pass a secure message to the Ice Man if you want. I imagine he is a bit frantic right now,” Marco offered.

It was clear the offer confused Sherlock and Marco couldn’t resist tweaking the detective a bit more. “You know your disguise is good enough to fool the large majority of people except for the fact that you really do have your father’s nose,” he said.

Marco savored the resulting look of shock and surprise that flashed across Sherlock’s face. Priceless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must apologize to the One Piece readers; I am not a part of your fandom so any out of character moments and canon discontinuity are completely my fault. Given that statement you might ask how the heck did I end up writing this particular cross-over. Well this story started life when a plot bunny escaped from one of my beta-readers (Kneoria/Erif_of_Taloma on FF.net and AO3 respectively) as part of a brainstorming session for the OPscifiandfantasy event (lunarshores) over on Tumblr. To make a long story short, the silly thing hopped into the Sherlock fandom and made itself at home. The next thing I knew it had convinced a couple of other plot bunnies to take a shuttle up to the orbital, steal a starship and run off into the deep-dark!
> 
> You will notice quite a few other fandom references sprinkled throughout. _The Endeavor’s_ name is lifted from the Star Trek fandom. The name of Whitebeard’s ship is a play on the phrase “as queer as Dick’s hatband” which allegedly refers to Oliver Cromwell's son Richard (1626-1712), who succeeded his father as ruler of England and ended up as the butt of many jokes for his admittedly short reign.” Yes, there is indeed an allusion to the James Bond film _Skyfall_ and a gratuitous Harry Potter reference. In addition some minor stuff from _Alice in Wonderland_ wandered in from God only knows where in my subconscious and took up residence. 
> 
> Some of the spaceship terms and their use were inspired by Nathan Lowell’s excellent series _Trader’s Tales From the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper_ (available in print from the usual sources and an author-read podcast from podiobooks.com). I really recommend the audiobooks. If you haven’t run across this author he could read a phonebook and make it interesting and that doesn’t even talk about the quality and humor of his writing. If you like space opera the entire series is really worth a read and/or listen although the climax of the final book will most likely make you cry.
> 
> As for the OC’s, well, you know who you are! Enjoy your cameos ladies.
> 
> As always I’ll sign off with apologies to the Bard
> 
> _If this writer has offended,_   
>  _Think but this and all is mended,_   
>  _That you have but tarried here,_   
>  _Whilst each chapter did appear,_   
>  _And these word upon this theme,_   
>  _Are of no import, only my dream._
> 
> It has been an honor to share my dream with you.  
> K2N2


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